How to Craft Tips: Decoupage Basics

Decoupage is an easy craft that's also a green craft. Decoupage is the art of pasting cut paper shapes and flat materials to another surface, then covering the entire piece with a clear varnish coating that blends the edges of the paper cutouts together and protects the surface.

Decoupage is French for "covering" and that's exactly what you'll do when you make a decoupage craft or gift. You'll cut out pictures, apply them to the surface of a box, cup, chest, plate or any other piece that will accept glue, then paint on a few coats of varnish to seal it.

If you want the finished piece to be as smooth as possible, choose paper cutouts from prints made on paper that's very thin and flexible - as thin as possible. The printing papers used in magazines, disposable napkins and gift wrap are ideal for creating smooth finishes on your decoupage crafts.

You can use thicker materials and even non paper flat items to create your decoupage pieces if you wish. Your final results will have some texture that can be just as interesting and beautiful as a smooth finish.

Materials and Supplies for Decoupage Crafts

You can purchase cutouts, or you can make your own from a wide variety of paper sources:

Greeting cards - cut out images from old cards that you've
saved or purchased at tag sales and flea markets

Fabric - from old clothing, linens, or the scrap basket

Wrapping paper - save paper from gifts that you've opened,
or buy it new

Photos - use actual photo prints or print out copies of your favorite pictures onto regular
paper using your computer. You can use your own snapshots, vintage photos you find online, commercial clip art photos, or photos you discover on the Internet.

Maps and Map Prints - Old or new maps, or map prints from clip art and online sources

Deciding What to Decorate

Once you've gathered a collection of materials for decoupage crafts, you need to decide what type of object you want to cover. Popular decoupage craft pieces are made from large or small containers, furniture, art papers and canvas. There's really no limit to what you can use for your decoupage base, so long as you can apply glue to the surface and add a protective varnish or clear coat finish (except for paper or artistic pieces).

Here are some ideas for decoupage objects you can use. If you use old papers and pictures from books, magazines or gift wrap and apply them to a recycled item, you're making your project totally green!

You can also do decoupage-style crafting to decorate items you won't need or want to varnish. This takes your decoupone more into the realm of collage art or paper crafting, but try adding cutouts to these materials:

Blank Greeting Cards / Note Pads / Card Stock - choose heavier weights that can hold a couple layers of glue and applied pictures or decals. Fancy cards and journals made this way sell for more than ten dollars in gift shops.

Starting your first decoupage project

Now you're ready to begin your decoupage project.

Choose and trim your cutouts and flat items, arranging them on your base piece without glue. When you've decided on a pleasing design, apply glue to the base piece and to the items, then place pieces one by one onto the glue-covered surface. You can overlap or space cutouts apart. I like to overlap and combine my pieces with bits of lace or trims from my sewing scrap box.

Allow your decoupage to dry thoroughly - at least 24 hours - then apply a coat of clear varnish or in the case of paper pieces, a light coating of clear spray coating. For paper pieces and art board decoupage work, you can omit using a finish coating.

Allow the piece to dry again for at least 24 hours until the varnish is hard. If you're applying decoupage on wood, paper mache or furniture, you may want to lightly sand the surface between varnish coats. Don't sand the final coat.)

Apply as many coats of varnish as you need. The more varnish top coat you add, the thicker the finish. When your final varnish coat is completely dry, admire your work - it's ready to enjoy or present as a crafty green gift.